Chapter 10
Instinctively, I began converting to fractals. The thugs ignored me. The first one in grabbed Dash before he could react. The second lunged for Violet. A weak force field had just started to grow around her, but the man's hand had enough momentum to stab through the ethereal sphere and to grab her. He gave her a firm shake, and the force field popped like a soap bubble. A third man seized Edna. The remaining men pointed their guns at the three captives.
Riptide entered followed by Noora Nightfire. He smiled. "Don't resist, Gemstone, or an awful lot of blood with flow."
"Grandpa!" snarled Dash as he tried to twist around and bite his captor's wrist, "Get them!" His captor slapped him silly.
"You're finished, Riptide," I told him. "Your organization has been smashed, your weapons are captured, your hideout's seized, and your plan's revealed. I can even make your beasties dance to my tune. This stunt will gain you nothing."
He grinned evilly. "You don't know me very well, do you Gemstone?"
A slender figure dressed in lime green bounded in through the open door. His feet landed on the thug holding Violet, and then he bounced high into the air, ricocheted off the ceiling, landed on the guy holding Dash, and flipped over to land on the thug holding Edna.
Guns swung towards him, but Dash was already ripping around the room, slapping the guns aside.
Violet popped open a force field that knocked two nearby henchmen sprawling.
Edna dove for a loose AK-47 and came up shooting.
"Edna!" I screamed. "No!"
But with a crocodile smile, she "walked" a stream of bullets across the breadth of the kitchen, taking out the refrigerator, the toaster, the coffeemaker, the microwave and the cookie jar (no, not the cookie jar!).
Riptide's men were flat on the bellies, trying to merge with the linoleum. I pinned each of them in turn, as Dash provided me with plastic zip ties, so that I could bind their wrists.
Violet used a force field to pin three of the dazed henchmen into a corner.
Edna covered the rest with her assault rifle, although I think it was only me who noticed the gun was empty.
The slender green figure stood nearby, looking somewhat embarrassed and unsure of himself. He appeared to be in his early teens. A yellow oval was featured on his chest, which centered around a green grasshopper. A matching cowl covered the top half of his face. He had no cape (Edna would so approve).
After we'd secured the various henchmen, Riptide and Noora Nightfire, I gave the lad a friendly nod, "Thanks, Grasshopper." (His moniker was not that hard to guess.)
He shrugged. "I'm happy I could help, Gemstone."
Edna was on the phone, reprimanding the police for not already being at my house. "If I have to do your job for you, dahling, the least you could do would be to show up and assist me."
Violet came creeping up to the youth, looking at him with suspicion and disbelief. "Tony?" she asked so quietly that only he and I could hear her. "Tony Rydinger?"